Sigma Labs Inc (OTCMKTS:SGLB) Aims at a New 52-Week High
When we last wrote about Sigma Labs Inc (OTCMKTS:SGLB) we mentioned that the ticker’s performance over the last few weeks hasn’t been what you’d call “consistent”. There have been quite a lot of positive sessions but we’ve also seen some corrections and on the whole, the movements displayed by the stock prove to be quite unpredictable. That said, the overall direction seems to be up and when you compare the current value to the one from about a month ago, you’ll see that more than 30% have been added.
Yesterday, SGLB logged another green session and registered an intraday high of more than $0.12. It failed to sustain the higher price and fell to $0.114 by the end of the day, but what really caught our eye was the increased interest. The number of shares changing hands within just six and a half hours of trading exceeds 5 million while the dollar volume stands at around $635 thousand.
Fortunately, the intense trading wasn’t caused by a paid promotion. In fact, SGLB seems to be one of the few small cap ventures that have managed to stay away from the pumpers. Over the years we have intercepted just two alerts and if the disclaimers are to be believed, the people writing them have received no money for their effort. But if it wasn’t the pumpers, then what drew the investors’ attention during yesterday’s session?
Well, the company itself hasn’t issued any press releases for about two weeks now, but it would appear that an article published by Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) is the cause for the trading frenzy. Curiously, it’s not related to SGLB at all, but rather, it speaks about General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) and their intention to expand the usage of 3-D printing in the manufacturing process. If you have been following SGLB for the last couple of months, you probably know that they signed a Joint Technology Development Agreement with GE‘s Aviation division back in May and having that in mind, the effects of IBD’s coverage are not that surprising.
A more profound question, however, is: “Will SGLB manage to perform in the long run?”.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait and see. The latest financial statement doesn’t look too bad with its positive working capital of around $164 thousand and the shrinking net loss, but the fact remains that SGLB are still generating their revenues through consulting services. The In Process Quality Assurance technology won’t be ready until 2014 and they are dependent on it in order to complete the agreement with GE.
More worryingly, as we mentioned in some of our previous articles, things haven’t been going quite according to plan – SGLB said in the 10-Q covering this year’s first quarter that they expect to have their technology ready for commercialization by the end of 2013. If they push the deadline further away in time, the ticker could be in for a drop and they even risk the termination of the agreement with GE, which will be a colossal blow to one of the few penny stocks that seem to be showing genuine signs of long-term potential. Let’s hope it will be all plain sailing.
In the meantime, people around the message boards are still concerned about the shares that got issued during July’s private placement. As we mentioned, the stock was valued at $0.01 per share which represents a massive discount compared to the current prices and an opportunity for a decent profit. We reckon that keeping it in mind is a good call since, because of SGLB‘s volatility, any additional stock hitting the market could cause trouble.
Yesterday’s session proved to be quite tough for most of the actively traded companies in Pennyland. Tickers like Bullfrog Gold Corp (OTCMKTS:BFGC), Cloud Security Corp (OTCBB:CLDS) and Patriot Scientific Corporation (OTCMKTS:PTSC) all finished the day in the red, but without a doubt, the most horrific crash was the one displayed by Cal Bay International Inc (OTCMKTS:CBYI) whose stock incinerated more than 80% of its value in just six and a half hours of trading.
